


'to lull you to sleep'

by magpie_fngrl



Category: Raven Cycle - Maggie Stiefvater
Genre: M/M, lullaby, nightime reading
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-11-15
Updated: 2014-11-15
Packaged: 2018-02-25 12:07:09
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 635
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2621120
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/magpie_fngrl/pseuds/magpie_fngrl
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Adam always liked the story, but now hearing it from Ronan he loves it.</p>
            </blockquote>





	'to lull you to sleep'

When Adam returns home those cold December nights, when day fades fast and his shifts stretch into the night, even though he finds Ronan waiting for him, sometimes he still can’t sleep. Exhaustion transforms into restlessness. Tossing and turning, he wakes Ronan up. Ronan pulls him closer, wraps his arms around him. Their bodies sharing heat, Ronan feeling warm and solid and real next to him.

But still.

“Can’t sleep?” Ronan murmurs in his ear.

“Nope”. Adam replies.

Ronan’s lips brush Adam’s cheek and the corner of his mouth.

“Maybe I could lull you to sleep?”

“You know lullabies?” A smirk.

“I can read to you. It might help”.

He doesn’t open a book that night. He knows part of the story by heart, but mostly he’s telling the tale as he remembers it.

> '… nor did Alice think it so _very_ much out of the way to hear the Rabbit say to itself, 'Oh dear! Oh dear! I shall be late!''.

He doesn’t say that it was what his father read to him on cold nights when sleep was far from reach for him, too. The next evening he produces the book. It is the book his father read from; the book he kept reading alone during his father’s long absences. It’s the same book he now has in his hands, that he reads from to Adam. He doesn’t say that he’s sharing with Adam one of his most treasured family memories. That he’s trusting Adam with a part of him that he rarely allows other people to see. But it comes through in his voice. Adam is good at listening to what isn’t being said.

Reading _Alice in Wonderland_ is a family thing, a Lynch thing. Now it becomes a Ronan and Adam thing. A ritual, a private tradition, a blossoming bond between them.

They keep up the habit every night. Their evenings fall into a routine. Brushing teeth, Adam checking homework for the last time, getting into bed, kissing and cuddles and the warmth of the other’s body – then, just before sleep, a passage from the book.

> 'Why should it?' muttered the Hatter. 'Does _your_ watch tell you what year it is?'
> 
> 'Of course not,' Alice replied very readily: 'but that's because it stays the same year for such a long time together.'

It always works. Adam falls asleep in Ronan’s arms. His dreams are of Gansey growing and shrinking, the women in 300 Fox Way having tea parties with clocks that don't work, Persephone wearing an enormous hat, Blue shouting “off with her head” and pointing at Orla, strange flowers and curious animals, and Ronan’s dangerous grin, disembodied, appearing and disappearing through trees that remind him of Cabeswater. Sometimes he searches for Ronan, he searches anxious and worried, sweat trickling in his brow, thorns pricking his arms, and finds him atop a mushroom telling riddles to Noah, who’s wearing a waistcoat and a sombre expression.

Adam doesn’t mind the dreams. Hearing Ronan's voice before sleep is worth it. He always liked the story, but now hearing it from Ronan he _loves_ it.  

One day, Adam thinks, daring to hope for a future that he never dared to even dream of, one day Ronan reading _Alice in Wonderland to him_ on their first winter nights together will be a glowing, warm, precious memory that they‘ll look back on and feel nostalgic about, a pearl of a memory, the first in a string of many.

“Read the part about the caterpillar again”, Adam says. He snuggles closer to him, burying his face in his neck. Ronan is half-sitting up. He finds the page, but first plants a kiss on Adam's forehead, then continues, his voice soft:

> 'I don't see,' said the Caterpillar.
> 
> 'I'm afraid I can't put it more clearly,' Alice replied very politely –

**Author's Note:**

> This short scene frustrated me more than any other fic. It just wasn't working. I revised and edited and ended up rewritting the whole thing. I decided to publish it now, before I pull more of my hair out.
> 
> Credit for the quotes: Lewis Carroll, Alice in Wonderland.


End file.
